


Standing on the Edge of Rooftops

by Rei



Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Eduardo is Spiderman, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mark's ~feelings, Spider!Wardo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rei/pseuds/Rei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Spiderman, right?” Mark asks. His voice sounds a little high pitched, but that might be due to the thin air. “That’s your secret super hero name. Spiderman.”</i>
</p><p> <i>“Yes. It’s Spiderman”, Eduardo breathes, still trying to keep his voice low and soothing. He mustn’t startle Mark. He’s still too far away to catch him if he…if he… </i></p><p> <i>“I googled you.”</i></p><p> <i>“You… Of course you did.” </i></p><p>   <i>“You’re really running around in tights. And saving people.” It’s a statement, not a question. Mark doesn’t do questions. </i> </p><p>The fic where Eduardo is Spiderman and Mark is possible insane and the worst damsel in distress ever. Also there's a ton of angst and <i>~feelings</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Characters:** Eduardo, Mark, possible cameos of varying Avengers  
>  **H/C-Prompts** : Bodyguards, Hugs, Isolation  
>  **Warnings:** Not beta-read (yet), suspension of disbelief, incredibly angsty schmoop, and Mark being Mark

_I'm picking up vibrations  
I can feel it in my blood  
I think I died of dehydration  
when I was waiting on the flood_  
 **Mark Mallman: “True Love”**

 

Being Peter Parker is a lot easier than being Eduardo Saverin. Who would’ve thought?  
Funny enough, even being Spiderman is easier than being Eduardo Saverin. Sure, there are people out there trying to kill him or beat him up every night and the newspapers call him a menace, but it’s still better than looking back on the burning pile of rubble that’s left of his life.  
Something about this whole thing is simply hilarious - Eduardo is pretty sure about that. Sadly he hasn’t found out what it is yet. 

In hindsight it’s kind of obvious that he uses the mask and the adrenaline and the ever present danger as means to ‘escape from his personal demons’. (The last part is a direct quote from Steve, who might or might not be right. The jury is still out on that one.)  
And yes, in hindsight it would have probably been the more healthy response to simply search for a therapist and talk about all the stuff Mark had put him through. But well, hindsight was always 20/20. And always kind of late.

So he doesn’t talk.  
But he’s fine, really. He works. He saves lives. He fights villains who have a dreadful sense of fashion. He makes friends. Well, he makes acquaintances, because Eduardo isn’t ready to have friends yet (or ever again).  
But they’re acquaintances who are superheroes and scientists and assassins and who are all kinds of cool and super special awesome, so that counts for something, right?  
So everything is good in a way, in a weird and not exactly healthy way maybe, but good nevertheless. 

And then Mark comes to New York and everything he built for himself goes to hell in the span of less than twenty minutes.  
Only Mark…only Mark has ever been able to do something like that. 

~

The night is cold and the sky is endless.  
Eduardo’s wide awake, high on sky and air and adrenaline. He runs and runs, he jumps and when he falls it feels like flying. Sometimes the whole thing is so amazing that Eduardo forgets that he has an actual job to do.  
In those moments he thinks he would be content just jumping from rooftop to rooftop like that for the rest of his life. Never slowing down and never stopping. 

But obviously somebody has to disturb this perfect night. Somebody always does.  
People don’t seem to be able to behave like decent human beings for even one night. It’s just not possible.

He stumbles upon a scene that looks familiar enough for him to come to a sudden halt mid-air. He creeps a little bit closer down the house wall.  
From above he sees two guys, one of them tall and bulky and the other skinny and pretty small. The bigger one has the other backed up against a wall and there’s something glinting in the darkness, something that looks suspiciously like a knife. 

A robbery probably.  
Who in his right mind thinks that it would be a good idea to walk through this particular kind of neighborhood at this time of night is anybody’s guess. Probably a tourist. Tourists could be all kinds of stupid. 

“… your laptop!”

So this is what it is about. Eduardo sighs under his mask and refrains from rolling his eyes. A laptop. Not exactly worth dying for. 

“No.”  
Apparently this guy doesn’t agree with him on that. 

“Give it to me or I’ll slit your throat, you little…”

The other one doesn’t reply, but if possible the possessive grip around his laptop seems to tighten. Eduardo can only hope whatever is on that thing is worth getting his ass kicked for.  
Slowly approaching he notices that laptop-guy has a rather small frame buried beneath his oversized hoodie. Even hidden by the shadows he looks skinny and nerdy and as if he couldn’t take on a baby kitten, least of all bulky guys like the thief.

Headfirst Eduardo slides down until he’s right behind the bully and taps him on the shoulder.  
“Hey.”

“What the hell…?” Big guy whirls around, knife prepared to stab whoever dares to interrupt him. 

Eduardo evades easily.  
“You know, I’d love to tell you something like ‘ _How about you pick on somebody your own size?_ ’ but I guess it’s really hard to find somebody of your meaty manly qualities.” 

After that it’s easy enough. Too easy.  
The guy is all mass and muscle and no brain. No grace.  
He stabs and kicks wildly around himself without even coming near important parts of Eduardo. There’s a lot of swearing tough and bitter remarks directed towards Eduardo’s masculinity.  
Eduardo feels pretty secure in his masculinity, okay?  
Well, he runs around in red tights, so he should. 

He delivers a few well-deserved blows and hopes that’s going to encourage douche bag from trying to rob somebody else for tonight. Usually it doesn’t work, but a spider has got to try, right?  
He watches him run away before he turns around. 

Important super hero rule no. 8: It’s essential to check the victims, too.  
They might be hurt or in shock. It also never hurts to convince people that he’s not a ‘menace’. 

“Hey. Are you all-…” He never gets around to finishing the sentence.  
All breath leaves his lungs.  
Mark. 

It’s Mark. 

The curls. The hoodie. The laptop. The stupid, stubborn insolence…  
 _Of course_ , he thinks, almost numb with shock, of course it is Mark.  
Who else could it be?  
Who else would rather die over a stupid laptop instead of just buying a new one with the billions and billions of dollars he probably makes?

White hot fury rushes through Eduardo’s veins until he feels almost dizzy with adrenalin. 

“Are you fucking insane?” he hisses. His hand shoots forward and before he can stop himself he’s already grabbing Mark’s stupid hoodie, shaking his lanky frame. “Why didn’t you give him the damn laptop? He could’ve killed you! What were you thinking?”

Mark blinks and looks up at him, somewhat confusedly. Then his mouth tightens and he frowns. “Who the hell are you?”

It feels like a punch to the stomach.  
Bittersweet hysteria rushes through his veins.  
For a second Eduardo has managed to forget the mask. For a second he hasn’t been Spiderman, he hasn’t even been Peter Parker. He has only been Wardo, Wardo yelling Mark because he has done something stupid and potentially bad for his health - something so achingly familiar because he has done it a thousand times before. 

But that…that was a lifetime ago and now Mark doesn’t know who he is. 

Slowly Eduardo lets go of his hoodie.  
The realization that Mark doesn’t recognize him tastes like relief and disappointment, sharp and bittersweet, all rolled into one. Of course he doesn’t. How could he. Eduardo Saverin doesn’t exist anymore.  
Mark himself has killed every part of him that mattered. 

“I’m the guy who just saved your ass”, he says and he feels like choking on his own voice.

Mark seems to consider that.  
“I guess”, he reluctantly allows, burying one of his hands in his pocket. It’s an achingly familiar gesture, just like his slouch and the way his fingers play with the hem of his hoodie. Everything about him is so familiar, it’s almost surreal. He should be a stranger now…unrecognizable like Eduardo beneath his mask.  
Mark.  
God. Mark.  
What is he even _doing_ here? 

“You’re not a police officer”, Mark states. 

“Oh really?” Eduardo replies bitingly. “You think?”

“You wear a mask.” Mark’s face is carefully blank. 

Eduardo exhales. It’s almost a laugh. He barely refrains from rolling his eyes, because seriously? This is all Mark can come up with? ‘ _You wear a mask?_ ’ 

“Why?” Mark tilts his head, obviously not deterred in the slightest. “You’ve got pimples or something?”

“You’re impossible”, Eduardo whispers. 

“Mark.”

“What?”

“That’s my name. Mark.”

No ‘ _Zuckerberg_ ’, no ‘ _I’m CEO, bitch_ ’. Who would’ve thought? In a way Eduardo is almost glad.  
Almost.  
“Yeah, whatever.” 

He needs to go. And fast. It feels as if there’s no air left in New York, not with Mark being so close and so goddamn...Mark.

“Is this a thing in New York?” Mark continues. “Because I heard it’s a thing.”

“What?”  
It has been a while since he has talked to Mark. He isn’t used to him anymore, the way Mark talks in ellipses, the way his brain jumps between topics and connects information differently than anybody else.  
There has been a time where he had always understood what Mark meant.  
But not anymore. 

“You. That.” Mark makes a vague motion with his hand that seems to refer to Eduardo or possibly the whole situation. “Running around in tights. Saving people. Seems like a thing to me.” 

“It’s more about the ‘saving people’-part than the ‘wearing tights’-part, but yes. I guess. It’s a thing.”  
His mouth is forming the words before his brain is able to catch up. This is the most surreal conversations he ever had. 

“I…yeah. Okay. That’s cool.” Mark shrugs uncomfortably. It’s the closest he’s ever going to come to actually say ‘ _thank you_ ’, Eduardo realizes and he almost smiles. Except it hurt too much to even try. 

“You should go”, he says and what he means is ‘ _I should go_ ’.

“Why?”  
Mark doesn’t move. He’s still staring at Eduardo, in a way he never has before. Or maybe he has, but Eduardo has chosen to forget it, he isn’t sure. Sometimes everything that has happened before New York feels blurry and out of focus, mute and sepia-colored like somebody else’s memories. 

He needs to go.  
He needs to stop talking.  
He needs to breathe. 

Eduardo’s pretty sure the mask muffles his voice, but there’s no sense in risking it. Sometimes Mark can be way more observant than anyone ever gives him credit for.  
And wouldn’t that be a whole new brand of disaster, him recognizing Eduardo? 

Parts of him want to run as fast and as far away as possible, never slowing down and never stopping. Not until it stops hurting. 

But Mark’s still on his own in a potential dangerous part of the city in the middle of the night, carrying a far too expensive laptop and weighing as much as a wet kitten. There’s no chance in hell that he won’t get into trouble as soon as Eduardo will turn his back on him. He might be as smart as they come, but Mark’s sense of self-preservation has always been small and woefully underdeveloped.  
But Eduardo can’t…Mark keeps looking at him and he can’t… 

“Cab”, Eduardo blurts out. 

“That’s your name?” Mark blinks. “Cap?”

“What? No.” He inhales. “I mean, call a cab. You can’t keep walking around like that with your laptop and not expect people trying to rob you.”

It sounds easy enough. _Call a cab. Drive home. Be safe. Stop asking. Stop looking._  
But of course Mark never does what he is told and he always, always argues against anything Eduardo says. He always has.  
“But…”

“No. Just.” Eduardo’s head aches. Or it might’ve been his heart. “Call a cab.”

“You didn’t tell me your name.” Mark is still staring at him. It starts to become unnerving. “I don’t mean your real name. I’m not stupid. But you didn’t tell me your secret superhero name either.”

“No.” Eduardo looks right back and he hopes his voice doesn’t tremble. “No, I didn’t.”  
He doesn’t wait for an answer, before he vanishes.

Half an hour later he is still shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

He had a plan, really.  
It was a good plan, too.  
It consisted mainly of never seeing Mark again, never mentioning him again and never ever thinking of the way again he has looked at him last night.  
Because that…never happened. 

It was probably all the adrenalin anyway. Or Mark was in shock. Or he has a kink for red tights that Eduardo never really knew about.  
But he’s not… he’s not thinking about Mark. At all. Not even a little. 

But of course life doesn’t work this way. Except that’s not quite right. Mark just doesn’t want life to work this way. 

Eduardo’s on his way across the rooftops, looking for trouble, (not because he needs to release some steam or because every part of him itches with longing and definitely not because life feels empty and meaningless a lot of the time. It’s just his job. It’s what he does now and no therapist or Captain America can tell him otherwise), when he senses that something is going on.  
Something feels wrong.  
It doesn’t take long for him to find the source of his discomfort. 

There’s a lonely figure standing on a rooftop of one of the bigger hotels.  
Oh please.  
Not one of those nut jobs again.  
Eduardo squints just to make sure. But nope. Even from afar the guy doesn’t look like a maintenance worker or as if he has any business standing on top of a thirty-seven stories building. He’s also standing close enough to the edge that it makes Eduardo feel vaguely uncomfortable. 

He changes direction and jumps straight on the roof behind him with the full intention of saving the guy and giving him The Speech. It’s The Speech (fully deserving of capital letters) about ‘not throwing away your life and how you’re better than this and how your life does actually matter’. Eduardo has gotten pretty good at that particular kind of speech lately.  
It might or might have not something to do with the fact that he gives it to the face in his mirror every morning. 

“H-…”  
He freezes and his voice dies in his throat. 

Because it’s Mark.  
It’s Mark standing there on the edge of the roof, looking ready to jump any second now.  
He stands completely still, arms hanging limply at his sides and part of his sneakers are already over the edge, and Eduardo feels his heart stutter to a full stop at the sight of him. 

No, he thinks, almost numb with terror, _no, no, no, wait, please, no._ This isn’t…this not supposed to happen.

Air whirls around Mark’s lonely figure. He looks hunched and small in his baggy clothes and weirdly vulnerable without a laptop nearby. And he’s so close, way too close to the edge of the roof. 

“You don’t want to do that”, Eduardo says and he doesn’t even know why he says it. What does he know what Mark wants to do and what not? 

Mark’s whole body tenses, but he doesn’t turn around. 

Eduardo creeps a little bit closer. “Don’t startle, okay? Just give me your hand. Give me your hand and I’ll pull you back. You’ll be okay. I promise.” His voice sounds soft and croaky and he clears his throat hastily, eyes still focused on Mark’s back.

He shouldn’t say stuff like this. Never promise anybody anything. No promises he can’t keep. And how is he going to know if Mark will be okay? How he is going to know if anything will ever be okay?  
He doesn’t know, but right now he doesn’t even care.  
Mark is not allowed to do that. Mark isn’t allowed to do that to him, not after all the shit he put Eduardo through already.

“Spiderman, right?” Mark asks. His voice sounds a little high pitched, but that might be due to the thin air. “That’s your secret super hero name. Spiderman.”

“Yes. It’s Spiderman”, Eduardo breathes, still trying to keep his voice low and soothing. He mustn’t startle Mark. He’s still too far away to catch him if he…if he… 

“I googled you.”

“You… Of course you did.” 

“You’re really running around in tights. And saving people.” It’s a statement, not a question. Mark doesn’t do questions. 

“I do”, Eduardo says and he almost laughs, because the irony is so big. Spiderman saves people. Eduardo can’t even save himself.  
He’s almost there, just a few steps closer and he can reach out and grab Mark’s hoodie, his silly, ugly, way too big hoodie and hold him so tight he won’t ever vanish again. 

Mark moves and he sways a little, and Eduardo almost screams at him to stop, _stop moving, you’re going to stumble and fall and you’re going to die, stop moving goddamnit!_ , but Mark regains his balance pretty quickly.  
Slowly, very slowly he turns around, until he faces Eduardo. 

“I thought you might come”, he says, sounding contemplatively. “I wasn’t sure if I needed to do something, like yelling. I didn’t find anything specific on it.”

“You…what?” 

“I didn’t yell”, Mark clarifies, strangely calm. “I thought you might come anyway. I wasn’t sure how this works. Would it have helped? Yelling, I mean?” 

It takes Eduardo a second to get what he means. And when he does, he almost wishes he hadn’t.  
He can’t be… he’s got to be… that’s got to be a joke or…  
Except it’s Mark.  
Sanity and decency are foreign concepts to him.

“I can’t believe you…”  
For a second he wants to strangle Mark.  
But first he has to pull him back from the edge.  
That’s…that’s a plan. He’s going to pull him back from the edge and then he’s going to strangle him.  
“ _…what the hell is wrong with you?!_ ” 

Mark shrugs a little. It’s a tiny movement, barely visible, but it’s enough to make his whole figure sway slightly and Eduardo’s heart jumps in his throat. “Well, you don’t exactly have a bat signal. Spider signal.”

“…what?”

“So getting saved looked like a pretty good idea to contact you.” 

“ _Mark!_ ”

“Oh. You remembered my name.” Mark sounds like he wasn’t too sure about that. “Do you…do you know who I am?” he adds.  
This is a first. The Mark he has known has never been hesitant, never insecure and never shy. 

“You’re a fucking suicidal idiot who’s standing at the edge of a roof!” Waiting for Spiderman to come rescue him.  
It…it boggles the mind. 

Mark looks mostly relieved. Maybe he honestly assumes Eduardo really doesn’t know who he is. “I’m not suicidal.”

Eduardo feels his teeth clenching. “Get down”, he hisses. “Get down here! I can’t believe you…”

“So, should I have yelled? Like ‘ _Save me, Spiderman_ ’?” Mark asks again, cocking his head like a curious little bird. Except he’s not a bird. If he jumps down he won’t fly; if he jumps, he’s going to end up on the sidewalk, shattered and broken. And Eduardo’s going to have nightmares about this image. “It seems kind of stupid, since I wasn’t sure if you’d even hear something like that. Do you have super-hearing?” 

“Give me your hand”, Eduardo says, not even dignifying this question with an answer. “You’re going to fall.”

“Oh.” Mark looks down as if he had already forgotten where he’s standing right now, as if it doesn’t matter anymore because he already got what he wanted. Eduardo is here. Expect Mark still doesn’t know that he is Eduardo, so what did he even want to prove in the first place with this stupid stunt? He’s making Eduardo’s head hurt.  
Eventually Mark nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

He makes a move toward Eduardo as if he’s about to step down from the edge, but then he stumbles. Eduardo feels frozen to the spot.  
Mark’s eyes widen almost comically. He’s swaying, dangerously, precariously close to the edge, arms flapping like wings. But they’re not, they’re not. If he falls down he’s not going fly.  
“ _No!_ ” 

It’s pure instinct taking over. Eduardo jumps forward without any recollection of conscious thought. Webbing shots out from his wrists and breaches the distances faster than any human being ever could, sticking to Mark’s shirt.  
Mark makes a little surprised gasp when Eduardo seizes him back.

This time he _does_ fall, but he falls down the right side, straight into Eduardo’s arms and it’s like every stupid romance novel coming to life and then some. Some instinct Eduardo hasn’t even known he possessed takes over and he yanks Mark closer. For a second he clings to him, his face buried in Mark’s hair, holding him so tight it probably hurts.

At first it feels all wrong and unfamiliar, numbed through the fabric of the suit and through the years that have passed, but then it feels like a perfect fit again, just like it always did. Mark’s bony, skinny, uncomfortable figure seems to melt against him as if he has been specifically designed for Eduardo.  
His heart hammers in his chest, parts adrenalin and parts panic.  
He feels vaguely sick. 

“Huh”, Mark pants, face smashed against his chest. His breath is warm, even through the fabric of the Spiderman costume, and for a second Eduardo wants to close his eyes and just…be there again.  
But he can’t. He can’t.

“…thanks. I guess.” Mark’s voice is barely audible. 

Eduardo withdraws as if burnt. He all but pushes Mark away. “Don’t _do_ that again!” 

Mark stumbles a little before he catches himself. “Don’t go”, he says quickly, as if Eduardo has made any move to do so. 

“Why shouldn’t I go? You’re obviously not in need of _rescue_.” It comes out more bitter than intended. 

Mark is probably the last person on earth in need of _anybody_ rescuing him. 

It was what Eduardo had been doing back then in Harvard, trying to save somebody who did neither want nor need to be saved. He had been taking care of Mark, looking out for him, making sure he ate and slept and watching out that he didn’t accidentally affronted the wrong people, people who could’ve hurt him.  
And even now, two years later, Eduardo can’t confess (not even to himself) that it has been nothing but a misguided attempt at making himself indispensable. A wasted attempt at being as important to Mark as Mark has been to him. 

It has been nothing but pathetic. _He_ has been pathetic. 

He did all that and it turned out being looked after was the last thing Mark ever needed. He managed pretty well on his own now, didn’t he?  
He always did pretty well without Eduardo.  
Eduardo was the one who didn’t do so great without Mark. 

And now he’s the closest thing to a super hero he’s ever going to be and Mark still doesn’t need to be rescued. Not by him anyway.  
Eduardo’s pretty sure somewhere out there somebody must be laughing at him right now. 

Mark frowns unhappily. “No, wait. That wasn’t…”

“What? Not what you had in mind? Yeah, tough. Life is hard and unfair. I suggest you get used to it.” 

“No, really, I…” Mark makes a vague little hand motion, before he stops and hunches in on himself. “The door to the roof is locked. I can’t get back in.”

Eduardo raises an eyebrow. “Serious? How did you get out here in the first place?” He really needs to talk to the damn hotel about their security systems. Allowing their stupid customers to run around on the roof is just careless. 

“It’s the fire exit. It’s designed to let you out, but not to let you back in again. That wouldn’t be, you know…burglarproof.” 

Eduardo stares at him, disbelievingly. “You didn’t think this through at all, did you?”

“Well, I thought saving people from rooftops included getting them back on the ground.” Now Mark sounds almost petulant and Eduardo shouldn’t find this endearing at all. 

“I’m not an escort service, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured that out after you made me hail a cab the last time. In New York.” He rubs his arms as if he’s cold, and maybe he is, the wind is pretty strong up here.

“Let me get this straight. You just stood here, on a roof, waiting for me to show up and then what? Save you? Carry you down like a princess? Is that what you’re expecting? That was your stupid plan?”

“I could’ve probably come up with something a little more elaborate”, Mark admits unwillingly. "But I didn't think you would appreciate it if I'd staged a fake bank robbery." 

“Yeah, you almost ended up _dead!_ Great work.”

“But you’re here.”  
Mark sounds unexpectedly small, open and honest in a way he has never sound before and it makes Eduardo feel ten kinds of uncomfortable. Mark isn’t supposed to be open and vulnerable. Mark is supposed to be an ass. End of the story.  
How can Eduardo hate him when he’s not being a pompous, heartless ass?  
And he has to hate him, he has to. Because anything else is not an option. 

Eduardo shakes his head. “Why can’t you just…”

“You don’t like me.” Again it’s not a question.  
And what the hell is Eduardo supposed to answer to _that?_

“What do you want from me?” he asks instead. He’s honestly curious about that, because that, too, is a first for Mark.  
Mark doesn’t want _anything_ from anybody. Mark doesn’t need people. Mark doesn’t need anything to be happy, except maybe a laptop in front of him. 

The answer comes without missing a beat. “I want you to work for me.” 

“What?”

“I want you to work for me while I’m here in New York. It’s only for a few weeks”, Mark adds quickly. “Three at the most.”

“You want me to work for you”, Eduardo repeats, slowly because this is too absurd to be true. Part of him wants to scream: ‘ _Because that went so well the last time!_ ’ but he doesn’t. “As what?”

“As … as a bodyguard.” The answer comes so quick that by now Eduardo is pretty sure Mark probably rehearsed the whole thing beforehand. He probably drew a diagram with arrows and numbers and lines to memorizes, because that’s exactly the way Mark works. Because, sad as it may sound, that’s probably still the only way Mark knows how to keep people around. Get them to work for him.  
What Eduardo still doesn’t understand is…everything else. 

“Your bodyguard. You want a super powered bodyguard. Wow, that’s…classy.”

“I’m…I could use one. There…there are people…a lot of people don’t like me very much.”

“I wonder why that is.”  
Part of him wonders more why Mark still doesn’t use the magic words, why he seems to be almost desperate to avoid saying them. ‘ _I’m Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire. CEO of Facebook, bitch_ ’. It would be so easy to say them. 

“I’m rich”, Mark eventually settles on. 

“And I don’t _care_.”

“I could pay you.”

“I don’t need your money! I don’t need anything from you”, Eduardo grits out, feeling parts insulted and parts confused. It’s not like Mark to try and buy people. 

“Sorry.”  
It’s not like Mark to say ‘sorry’ either. 

“Look.” Eduardo takes a deep breath. “I…I’ll get you down from the roof. You go back to… whatever it is you do here…”

“It’s a tech conference. I’m supposed to…”

“Stop! Do you see this? This is _me_ not giving a shit. I don’t care what you’re doing here as long as you stay clear of my rooftops.” 

“ _Your_ rooftops.” 

Now Mark is just being sassy. Eduardo finds himself responding anyway.  
“Yes, _my_ fucking rooftops where you have no business of being, except that you steal my time and stop me from doing my work, like saving people who actually need it!”

“Well, I’m sure they’re lining up by the dozen to jump right now while your back is turned, but…”

“Oh no. Don’t. Don’t you dare! You don’t get to ridicule my job, okay? You’re the one who just tried to hire me. You’re the one who just locked himself out on a _roof_ in a misguided attempt to play damsel in distress. So no! _You_ of all people don’t get to laugh at me!”

Mark looks as if he wants to argue, but then he closes his mouth instead.  
He looks almost defeated.  
Eduardo supposes it should feel like a victory, but strange enough it doesn’t. In this war there was never a possibility for winners. 

He massages his temples. “Listen, I’ll get you down and you’ve got to promise you’ll just forget about this. About me. Don’t call me, don’t try to make me save you, don’t hang around rooftops, okay? Just…forget about me.”  
He doesn’t care anymore about how desperate he sounds. 

“No.”

“Yes!” he hisses. “Yes, you will. Otherwise I’ll just go now and let the fire department deal with you which in turn will alert the press to your little stunt. They’re going to just love this, believe me.”

After this Mark is quiet, even though Eduardo suspects it has less to do with the threat and more to do with the fact that Mark just doesn’t know what to say anymore.  
He has never been great with words. 

He allows Eduardo to hold him close to his chest when he gets him down though and he buries his face in Eduardo’s neck. Mark has never been too fond of heights (which makes the whole stunt even more baffling).  
It feels entirely too familiar und way too comfortable having Mark in his arms again and it makes a part of his heart hurt that Eduardo has almost forgotten exists. 

He’s pretty sure he has never landed so gently before, but somehow Mark feels more fragile in his arms than he ever has. Breakable. Eduardo chooses a backyard of the hotel to set him down, somewhere secluded people won’t see them.  
He isn’t prepared to share this with anybody yet. Or ever. 

“Goodbye”, he says and this time he means it. 

~

He spends the rest of the night running across the city, unable to sleep. He doesn’t save anybody else.  
Great. This is great. Mark has broken him.  
Again. 

Work for Mark.  
As a bodyguard.  
A BODYGUARD.  
Who does he think he is? Whitney Houston?  
And who does he think is going to believe this stupid story about people out there trying to kill him? 

Obviously a lot of people might have reason to hate Mark.  
But Eduardo hasn’t killed him a long time ago, and if _he_ hasn’t done it by now, nobody ever will. He’s pretty sure that nobody else has ever been as angry at Mark as he has been. 

It’s not as if he hasn’t thought about it, because he has. Maybe just for a split second, but the thought had crossed his mind. Right before he smashed the laptop which was the next best thing to bashing Mark’s head in. 

Sometimes he still dreams of this moment when he storms through the office, eyes solely fixed on Mark’s lonely isolated figure at the other end of the room. In his dreams it takes forever to reach Mark. Mark never looks up. He never gets closer.  
Eduardo’s pretty sure it’s a metaphor for something, but he’s also pretty sure he doesn’t want to examine it too closely.  
Eventually he reaches Mark and in his dreams…in his dreams Mark looks up to him. He’s still looking at him when Eduardo puts his hands around his neck.  
In his dreams Mark never even makes a sound when Eduardo is choking him. 

That’s the exact moment Eduardo always wakes up drenched in sweat, gasping for air. 

‘ _It’s only for a few weeks. Three at the most._ ’

Three weeks, he thinks.  
And suddenly New York seems so much smaller to him. 

~

Agent Natasha Romanoff calls him a few days later. It’s rare for SHIELD to call him, but they do have his number for…well, emergencies. He assumes ‘ _emergencies_ ’ in that case means space zombies taking over the world or something. He isn't sure. It's not as if it happens all too often. 

“Get here”, she orders without greeting. “We could use a little help.” Even through his phone Eduardo can hear her bewildered amusement. So, no space aliens then. 

“What is it?” he asks, all businesslike and ready to jump out of his t-shirt. 

“I have someone here who refuses to be rescued.” 

“…what?”

“To clarify – no, he doesn’t object to being rescued in general, he just doesn’t want to be rescued by _us_. I honestly think I should be affronted.”

Eduardo almost laughs, except he instantly knows whom she’s talking about which makes the whole thing _everything_ but funny. “Oh crap”, he moans. “Skinny, nerdy guy with curls and a too big hoodie? Probably caring around a laptop?” he guesses. 

“Yes. He refuses to leave a burning building.”

“He…what? Is he…is he hurt?” 

“No. Not yet. But he will be if we don’t get him out of here. But he refuses to be rescued by anybody else except Spiderman. What is he - another fanboy of yours?” 

“No. God no. Not really.”  
Something occurs to him and he blanches. “Wait! You said a burning building! Did he… did _he_ set it on fire? Is he an arsonist? Is he in trouble?” 

‘ _But I didn't think you would appreciate it if I'd staged a fake bank robbery._ ’

He hears Mark’s voice all too clearly and all of a sudden the ground feels as if it’s about to give out beneath his feet. He tries to focus on Natasha, but her voice seems to come from far away. 

“I don’t think so. Seems like a freak accident. It happened on a tech conference with a lot of high-tech computers standing around and so far it looks like a cable fire. Why? Should we look into it?”

It’s only the last sentence that has him snapping out of his stupor.  
“ _No!_ No, don’t. Please, don’t! God.” Eduardo buries his face in his hands. He feels lightheaded with panic. “He’s… he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s…he’s crazy, reckless, stupid… don’t look into it. Just. Don’t. Please, don’t.” 

Natasha pauses and seems to contemplate that. “Whatever”, she eventually says which makes him feel almost sick with relief. “Nobody got hurt so far. Still looks like a cable fire to me.”

“Good. That’s…good.”

“I guess you don’t plan on telling us what this is about?”

“No.” Just like he doesn’t plan to drive a rusty nail into his eye socket. It’s simply not worth the pain. 

“Fine. Any suggestions how we get him out of here?” 

“No. Yes.” Eduardo runs a hand across his face. “Don’t worry, okay? He won’t put up a fight. He doesn’t have, like…secret mutant powers or anything. He’s just a guy. Just have Hawkeye throw him over his shoulders and carry him out or something. But don’t…”, he clears his throat, before he adds a little bit quieter: “…don’t hurt him, okay? As soon as he starts talking you might feel tempted to and it would be completely understandable, but…don’t.” 

“So you won’t come.” She doesn’t sound reproachful and she doesn’t make it a question. Sometimes Eduardo kind of likes Natasha’s matter-of-factness. Sometimes it reminds him to much of Mark to ever feel comfortable around her.

“No, I…” He swallows. “It’s better if I’m not there. Believe me. It’s better.” 

And he almost believes it himself.

He did all that and it turned out being looked after was the last thing Mark ever needed. He managed pretty well on his own now, didn’t he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize Mark comes across as pretty ... crazy, but I promise it all make sense in the end. ^^* Well, maybe only in my head, but duh...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and the comments! They mean a lot to me! =)   
> Hope you enjoy!

Seven hours later, well past midnight, Eduardo sticks to the wall of Mark’s hotel like a… well, like a spider. (Coming up with appropriate metaphors is not his priority right now, okay?) He’s shaking and it’s not from the cold.   
Thirty-seven floors and of course Mark’s suite is in the topmost. Suite. Yeah right. Whom is he kidding? Mark probably bought the whole floor. He likes keeping to himself after all and he probably needs some peace and quiet right now _to come up with EVEN MORE harebrained schemes to get Spiderman to RESCUE him!_

Eduardo knocks at the window first, feeling more than a little bit stupid, but that’s just how he was raised.   
Masked vigilante or not, but that’s no excuse for rudely breaking and entering. Okay, so his mother or his aunt may have never explicitly mentioned the breaking and entering-part, but there definitely was talk about rude behavior. So there.   
He might be seething with anger, but he _is_ going to knock first even if it kills him. And then…then he’s going to kill Mark. 

It takes Mark less than three seconds to realize the knocking came from the window and not the door, which is a lot less time than it usually takes people. But then again he has always been pretty fast on the update.   
To his credit, Mark doesn’t look particular surprised when he pulls the curtain back. For a second he just looks at Eduardo, his face unreadable, before he opens the window. “You.” 

“I can’t believe you!” Eduardo hisses. 

Mark raises an eyebrow and steps back while Eduardo jumps into the room. „What do you want? You didn’t even want to rescue me.” He has the audacity to sound almost offended. 

„A fire?!” Eduardo stalks towards him. He’s so angry his whole body seems to vibrate with rage. “Seriously? What are you - a psycho? Are you honestly willing to hurt people, to kill people, just to get my attention?! What the hell is _WRONG_ WITH YOU?!”  
He yells the last part. Mark flinches and steps back. 

“That’s not…”

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed! And for what? For WHAT?” 

„I didn’t set the fire.” 

„Oh, come on!” Eduardo hisses. “You honestly expect me to believe that this was freak accident? That you had nothing to do with it?” 

Mark‘s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and his pale throat looks obscenely exposed in the dim light. „No.” 

He’s wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt ( _just out of the shower_ , Eduardo’s brain supplies helpfully) and he looks almost naked without the ever present over-sized hoodie.   
Mark doesn’t fit into the luxurious suite, Eduardo thinks and it makes his throat feels tight. He looks all wrong here, surrounded by plushy carpet, golden door knobs and four poster beds, like a little boy playing grown-up in his daddy’s suite.   
Mark has never been great at playing grown up. He never was and he never will be. He does stupid, reckless, wildly irresponsible things like hacking the CIA and then being honestly surprised when somebody tries to arrest him for that. He’s standing on rooftops with no way back in and he’s absolutely able to set fire to a whole goddamn building and refusing to get out, just to make a point. He never thinks, he never goddamn _thinks_. He just goes ahead and does whatever he thinks might be a good idea at the time. 

„You’re unbelievable. You’re a complete lunatic …”

Mark shakes his head. He’s still backing away from him and a distant part of Eduardo marvels if he truly looks so menacing. „It’s not what you think. It might….maybe it _had_ something to with me. I don’t know, okay? I don’t _know_. But I didn’t set the fire.”

„What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Mark stops when his back hits the wall. Defiantly he raises his chin and looks at him. „I told you. Some people don’t like me very much.”

Eduardo stares at him and for a second he’s rendered speechless. When he finds his voice again he laughs harshly. It’s not a nice sound. „So you’re claiming there’s someone out there who tries to…what? _Assassinate_ you? You want me to believe that?”

Mark shrugs. He’s still looking at him, in a way that’s somewhere between desperate and challenging, as if he dares Eduardo to disagree. 

Eduardo raises an eyebrow, not sure if the mask correctly conveys his disbelieving stare. “Wait. You’re serious about that”, he notes. “You _actually_ believe someone is out to get you.”

Mark does neither confirm nor deny; he just keeps starring at Eduardo, chin raised and lips pressed tightly together. 

There had been a time when Eduardo had always known if Mark was telling the truth.   
Mark usually did, which might have come as a surprise to some people, but Mark obviously didn’t care enough about other people’s opinions to even bother coming up with a lie. But sometimes he had made up excuses, like the way he did with the Winkelvosses, so people would stop bothering him.   
There even had been some little white lies for Eduardo’s sake (‘ _Of course your father’s going to be proud, what else would he be?_ ’, ‘ _Erika is just … we’re just hanging out_ ’), which must have been at the height of their friendship, because why else would Mark even have bothered trying to spare his feeling. 

But right now Eduardo…doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anymore. 

Eventually Mark averts his gaze. Roughly he pushes past Eduardo, almost close enough to touch, but not quite. He walks over to the four poster bed and sinks down at the edge. He runs a hand across his face and suddenly he looks mostly tired. “Believe what you want. But I didn’t set the fire.” 

Mark is a crazy lunatic and he has no ounce of compassion or empathy, but would he really go that far?   
The saddest thing is…Eduardo isn’t even sure anymore what Mark would and would not do.  
There had been a time where he would’ve bet half of his limbs on Mark not being able to screw his best friend over.   
See how _that_ went. 

Mark sighs as if he has read his thoughts, which is pretty much impossible. He raises his head and throws Eduardo a look that’s somewhere between hurt and annoyed. „Look, if you don’t want to believe in the goodness of my heart, I get it. I wouldn’t either. But at least give me a little credit for my intellect here. If I wanted to get your attention, why would I create a situation with so many distractions and unpredictable variables and most important a situation with so many other people? I don‘t get much of your attention if you’re busy carrying out orphans, widows and little puppies. That would be just stupid.” 

His indignant face almost startles a laugh out of Eduardo and he can feel some of the tension in his shoulders decrease somewhat.   
„Of course you’re not offended that I accuse you of arson and criminal assault - you’re offended because I might think you’re stupid”, he sighs. “Oh please _excuse_ me.”

“So, you believe me?”

Almost against his will Eduardo finds himself nodding, reluctantly.   
Mark has a point. If all he wanted was Eduardo’s…Spiderman’s attention there would’ve been easier ways, and more importantly there would be more foolproof ways.   
He might not yet (or ever) be prepared to believe in the goodness of Mark’s heart or, you know, Mark actually _having a heart_ , but Mark has never been anything but practical. Setting a building on fire isn’t exactly…practical by any means.   
Which probably means Mark really didn’t do it. 

Mark throws him a gaze. Obviously he didn’t expect Eduardo to believe him. He seems almost pleased. 

Now he actually takes the time to really look at him Eduardo has to admit Mark looks…bad. Haunted. He hasn’t looked great during their former encounters either, but Eduardo has firmly refused to acknowledge it. It’s not his problem anymore how Mark does, isn’t it? It’s not his responsibility anymore if Mark eats or sleeps or takes care of himself. But now he wonders if it’s anybody’s responsibility nowadays.   
Mark has always been pale, but right now his skin looks almost translucent, as if he hasn’t slept at all during the last few days. Mark’s curls are still wet from the shower and they drip into the fabric of his t-shirt like tearstains. His face is scrubbed clean, but there’s a tiny black smudge (probably ash) beneath his right ear that he has missed. It looks like a fingerprint someone left on his skin and Eduardo feels a half-forgotten surge of possessiveness rush through his veins. 

“What now?” Mark asks, obviously uncomfortable under Eduardo’s intense scrutiny. 

„How do you know someone is out there trying to kill you?” Eduardo barely refrains from making air quotes with his fingers. He’s not completely sold on the story yet. It sounds too much like a movie.   
On the other hand…he’s running around in tights and saving people. Maybe he’s got no room to talk. 

„I…I got letters and stuff. I mean, I get a lot of letters and most of the time it’s just people being stupid and angry. But then things started to happen. In Pa-… where I come from. Somebody got hurt.”

Eduardo exhales sharply, because all of the sudden the whole thing assumes ugly proportions. He hasn’t even thought so far.   
„Who?” 

He’s surprised about how calm his voice sounds, just barely interested, while inwardly he’s shaking. 

Not Dustin, he thinks, almost numb with horror. Not Dustin.   
It can’t be Chris, he’s pretty much sure of that. Chris is safely in Washington, at least that’s the last thing he heard.   
Oh please don’t let it be Dustin. He can’t be hurt. Surely somebody would’ve told him, would’ve let him know if Dustin has been seriously injured…would they? Would they? He doesn’t know. He isn’t sure anymore. 

„One of my co-workers”, Mark says, averting his eyes. “She got run off the street when she was driving my car and ended up in the hospital with a concussion and a broken leg. I was supposed to…it was my car. I wasn’t sure… I mean, it looked like an accident, but the other driver was never found and I thought… I don’t know.”

“That somebody was aiming at you? Come on. That’s… that’s a stretch.” 

Mark scrubs at his eyes. “Yeah. I know.”

It’s unusual enough that he isn’t being difficult and contrary on purpose that it sparks Eduardo’s interest.   
“What else?”

“Nothing big. Just…stuff.” 

“Don’t you think if somebody would honestly try to kill you they would have done it by now?”

Mark shrugs, but he doesn’t deny it. His quiet docile acceptance is scary at best and worrying at worst. Something is going on here that Eduardo can’t quite grasp, something wrong and disturbing. 

“Why didn’t you talk to the police?” 

Mark shakes his head. A single drop of water runs down his cheek. “They wouldn’t believe me. There was never any proof that anything had been tampered with. It always looked like accidents. Maybe it was just accidents. I…I don’t know.” 

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt looking into it. Just for a few days.   
He is a superhero after all now. He can’t just…he can’t turn people away when there’s even the slightest possibility they’re in danger. Even if it’s Mark. 

“Okay. Let’s just for one second assume I believe you”, he says and this time Mark raises his head and looks at him. “Now listen up and listen well, because I’m not going to repeat myself. If you want to do this, we do it my way.”

Mark nods. 

“This means you do as I say when I say it. It also means no arguing, no bickering, no stupid stunts like standing on that rooftop again, no yelling ‘Save me, Spiderman’, got it?”

“What if I’m in actual danger? What if somebody’s trying to drown me in a pool filled with sharks or dangling me from a skyscraper? Am I then allowed to yell ‘ _Save me, Spiderman_ ’?”

Eduardo throws him a gaze that’s pretty much acidic. “A simple ‘ _help!_ ’ should work fine, I imagine.”

“Okay.”

 _No talking_ , he wants to add, _and no looking at me like that. No looking at me as if you try to work something out, as if you’re trying to see something…someone else._

“Do you have a phone number?” Mark asks.

Eduardo raises his eyebrows. 

“I mean, what if I need to get in contact with you?” 

“Believe me, I’ll find you.” By now he’s pretty sure he has a built-in sixth sense to feel when Mark is doing something stupid. “Do you have a schedule for the next days?” 

“Just a few meetings. And one more conference.” 

“Okay.” Eduardo nods. “First of all, get me a schedule with the concrete dates and times. Other than for those appointments, don’t leave the hotel. No, don’t tell me you want to go shopping, you don’t. I’ve seen your clothes. And somehow I don’t suppose you have any social visits to make.” He isn’t even being cruel on purpose, but as soon as the words leave his mouth Eduardo wishes he could take them back. 

Mark doesn’t look hurt, but somehow that makes it even worse. “No, I don’t. I don’t do friends.” It’s a statement, devoid of any emotion. 

Eduardo clears his throat and fights for composure.   
“Second, show me the letters”, he orders, because at least that’s something he knows how to do. 

Surprising enough Mark gets up and does as he’s told. This new compliance of him is seriously starting to become disturbing. 

After that they’re both quiet. They sit next to each other on the bed (more closely than Eduardo’s comfortable with) and Mark hands him one letter after the other.   
Some are typed, some are actually hand-written (which is pretty stupid) and some consist of honest to god cut out letters.   
Mostly it’s the same stupid stuff Mark used to get all the time, even right after they launched Facebook. That he’s a phony, a thief, a terrorist, a communist, a whackjob, that’s he’s greedy, insane, useless or the devil himself.   
It’s weird, to be honest. Weird and a little bit unfair, even if Eduardo himself would never admit it out loud. Out of all the things people could hate Mark for they always seem to choose this stuff, as if Mark’s intelligence and smartness and his ability to make money out of it are something to feel personally insulted by.   
Nobody mentions anything about him being a bad friend, but that might be because Mark has never tried being friends with anybody else before or after Harvard. 

“Hey, do you think somebody…” Eduardo pauses mid-sentence and turns his head when a sudden weight lands on his shoulder.   
Somewhere between one letter and the next Mark must have fallen asleep. If he has gotten as little sleep as it looks like, it’s not really surprising. 

For a second everything is soft and warm, painted in gold and retro-colors and the grateful lack of bad memories. Mark’s curls feel damp against his neck and his face looks open and vulnerable in sleep. His face is smashed against Eduardo’s shoulder, his lips are parted and Eduardo imagines if he wouldn’t be wearing the spider-suit right now he could he feel Mark’s breath on his skin. 

Mark has always hated people touching him.   
He hadn’t even liked it if people were standing too close or were trying to shake hands with him (which might be part of the reason while he keeps burying his hands in his pockets). Of course he has never explicitly said so, but Eduardo has been there and he has seen the way Mark has hunched in on himself when people had come too close and the way he had tried to avoid physical contact.  
With Chris and Dustin it was somewhat okay. They had lived together in close quarters, constantly in each other’s personal space and Mark had been okay with that. Chris has been way too polite to be overly touchy-feely, but Dustin has always been all over people he liked and while Mark had never looked particularly thrilled about it, he hadn’t seemed to mind if Dustin sat close to him, patted his head or wrapped an arm around his shoulders. 

Eduardo however… Eduardo has always been the sole exception to this particular one of Mark’s rules. He knows this and he has fought hard not to feel honored about it anymore.   
With him Mark had not only not minded being touched, he had actively searched for physical contact. Back then in Harvard he used to have this habit where he had sat down next to wherever Eduardo has been sitting and inconspicuously had slid closer and closer and he could somehow…melt into his side. 

It’s highly disturbing and even more alarming that Mark subconsciously seem to consider Spiderman as safe to touch as he used to consider Eduardo.   
But Mark is asleep. Mark is asleep and he can’t suspect anything…

Eduardo moves slowly, carefully and catches Mark’s prone figure with one arm when he threatens to slide down. Gently he places him on the bed.   
For a split second his fingers hover in front of his face, longing to pull a stray curl out of his forehead.   
He draws his hand back and closes his eyes. 

It’s not Harvard, he tries to tell himself. It’s not Harvard.   
It’s all over. Whatever has been there between them…it’s all over now.   
Mark effectively destroyed every little bit of affection Eduardo has ever held for him. Ever little bit. 

Mark frowns a little in his sleep. His lips move as he murmurs something and instinctively Eduardo bends forward to catch it.   
What escapes his lips is more of a sigh. It’s one word only. “…Wardo.”

Eduardo recoils as if slapped. 

He flees from the hotel room as silently as he has entered it. The only things he takes with him are a few of the letters and the schedule Mark has printed out for him.   
His heart is beating the whole back to his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not sure whether to believe Mark or not, that's cool. ;)   
> Both works and Eduardo isn't sure either... yet.


	4. Chapter 4

Eduardo calls Chris the next day, even though he isn’t sure why. He hasn’t talked to Chris in weeks, possible months.   
It’s part logic and part a deep-seated belief that he never really got rid of, a belief that Chris can make things _okay_.   
It’s stupid, really. But he wasn’t the only one. They all used to have this belief back then in Harvard, even Mark. That you called Chris and told him your problems and whatever it was he somehow _magically_ fixed it and by the end of the day it wasn’t as bad as you had imagined it would be. It’s part of the reason why he deserves every penny Obama pays him. 

But then Eduardo and Mark had to go ahead and kill this belief most efficiently.   
Because obviously what happened between them…that was something not even Chris could fix.   
The look on Dustin’s face when he realized that it was something Chris couldn’t solve still reminds Eduardo of a kid who realizes for the first time that Santa Claus is a lie. 

It takes forever and three different secretaries to eventually get a hold of Chris. And when he does the conversation is awkward and stilted.  
Chris sounds painfully surprised to hear from Eduardo and he’s uncomfortably careful when he talks as if he’s afraid he might say something wrong. It’s obvious that he’s still at work and he’s definitely busy, as there are people in the background and some voice or the other is always asking him something. 

“Should I… you know what, maybe should I call you back?” Eduardo suggests after the fifth interruption in just as many minutes. 

“No. No, of course not. Just…” Chris sighs and there’s some rustling on the other side of the line and he hisses something that Eduardo doesn’t understand. 

“It’s fine, really. If you don’t have the time…”, Eduardo tries again. 

“I do”, Chris protests. “I do! Just give me a second…”

Eduardo runs a hand across his forehead. The headache from last night is back in full force again. He should probably just lay down for a bit, but he can’t, he’s too wired to even sit still.   
He walks back and forth in his apartment, always the same twelve steps between the living room and the bedroom and back again. His apartment has never felt so small before. 

There’s more rustling at the other end of the line. “Sorry, I…”

“Can we just…talk?” Eduardo asks softly. It’s not even what he has meant to say, but it seems to work, because on the other line Chris goes silent all of a sudden. 

“Wardo.” Chris sounds almost sad. Suddenly Eduardo hears a door being closed and all the background noises vanish. Chris must’ve gone somewhere private. “We can _always_ talk. You know that.”

Eduardo takes a deep breath and thinks, right. Chris and Dustin aren’t the ones he’s angry with and they aren’t the ones who screwed him over. Sometimes it’s just hard to differentiate. “It’s…it’s about Mark.”

“What did he do?” 

“Nothing…much. He’s in New York at the moment and so am I. We…uhm we ran ran into each other this week, twice. And we…talked.”

“You…what?” Even without seeing him Eduardo is able to picture Chris’ disbelieving face. 

“We just talked. Don’t get your hopes up or anything. We didn’t… there was no hugging and making up. But we didn’t kill each other either, so you should be proud, because we obviously avoided the PR-nightmare that would’ve followed. But Chris, he mentioned some stuff…”   
It’s more difficult than he imagined explaining the exact circumstances of their little talks and how and why Mark has said anything to him in the first place. But somehow Eduardo manages to be as vague as possible without sounding like he’s pulling it out of his ass while he speaks (which he does). When he’s finished there’s a long pause at the other end of the line. 

“Chris…?” Eduardo asks after another minute of silence. 

“Mark told you he’s being _threatened?_ ” 

“Yes. Why? Didn’t you know?”

“That’s the first thing I hear about any of this.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Surprised Wardo stills mid-movement. Somehow he has expected Chris to know. 

“Well, I…I suppose we’re not as close as we used to be, so it’s entirely possible Mark wouldn’t mention something like this to me. But…” Chris pauses again, obviously thinking. “No. Just no. That’s not…Wardo, it’s still impossible. Look, I’m pretty sure he would’ve told Dustin and Dustin would never keep something like that from me. No way. Except…”

“Except what?”

“Except it happened very recently”, Chris admits reluctantly. “You have heard, I assume?”

“Heard what?”

“Dustin doesn’t work for Facebook anymore.” 

Eduardo pauses, completely taken by surprised. “What?”

“It hasn’t hit the news yet. It was nothing personal, just a job offer that came along and looked pretty irresistible. But Mark…he didn’t take it so well.”

“Dustin _left_ him?”

He isn’t sure if it came out accusatory or anything, but Chris responds immediately. He has always been quick to defend Dustin. “Hey. Don’t get your panties in a twist. You _know_ Dustin. You know it wasn’t like that. Dustin went out of his way to prove to Mark that they could still be friends, no matter where he worked. As did I before I left Facebook. But… you know Mark. You know how he is when he tries to prove that he doesn’t care about anything or anybody anymore.” 

Eduardo doesn’t even know what to say to that.   
Maybe because until this very day he isn’t sure it has ever been about Mark _pretending_ anything.   
He closes his eyes and tries to imagine Mark’s face during the depositions and to compare it to Mark’s face last night.   
Mark’s unreadable face.  
But the only thing he can come up with, the only picture his mind provides, over and over again is Mark being asleep, lying on the bed and whispering Eduardo’s name. 

Chris continues talking, oblivious to Eduardo’s inner turmoil. “You know what? I even remember Dustin telling me about the car accident. And he never said anything about it being in any way suspicious or unusual. He was just glad Mark wasn’t hurt. So no, I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t Mark have mentioned anything to Dustin?” 

Slowly Eduardo opens his eyes. “…what are you trying to say?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Chris sounds genuinely upset. “I just…I guess I don’t know Mark as well anymore as I used to…”

Eduardo doesn’t know what to say to that either.   
Has anybody ever _really_ known Mark? 

~

The call leaves Eduardo feeling equally numb and torn.   
Part of him is trying to find plausible reasons why Mark wouldn’t mention any of the things he suspected to Chris or Dustin while another part of him just thinks that it’s pretty standard Mark behavior. Why talk to your friends when you could be busy coding? Why talk to anybody about anything, really.   
It’s just the way Mark’s mind works. 

He spends the rest of the day making calls, talking to the police about the fire and rereading all the letters he took with him.   
There’s a lot of stuff in there that makes his stomach queasy, but it’s all pretty vague. 

The letter who peaks his interest the most is one of the few handwritten ones. Not because it’s handwritten (really, that’s just sloppy), but because of the very explicit (and very disturbing) wish to see ‚Mark burning‘ in his own technological fire one day.   
Because a.) fire. Duh.   
But also b.) because of the whole thing happening during a tech conference and c.) didn’t Natasha mention something about it looking like a cablefire?   
Could be a coincidence, but somehow Eduardo never really learned to believe in that kind of coincidence. _It’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you_ and all that crap.   
But where to start? Dusting for fingerprints would probably be too late as well as futile considering Mark had probably carried it around for a while. That and Eduardo has nothing to compare it, too anyway. 

Which brings him to the next problem.  
Who would have a reason to hurt Mark?  
Eduardo himself would obviously be the prime suspect, but well, since he didn’t do it, he is going to have to come up with something better.   
Rivaling software companies maybe? Someone from Google? 

The reasons the letter states why Mark deserves to die a grueling death aren’t quite clear to him either, which probably means he’s not crazy enough yet to think like a psycho. There’s a comforting thought.   
A lot of it is about Facebook making the world more confusing and therefore more prone to evil. It does sound less religious and more political though which isn’t really helpful at all.  
He needs to talk Mark again, no way around it. 

He’s already on his way to the hotel when the call from SHIELD sidetracks him.   
This time there’s no mention of anybody refusing to be rescued and the thankfully there’s also no mention of the recent fire or one of ‘Spiderman’s fanboys’. It’s straight up business.   
It’s a bank robbery of all things.   
(A hysterical little part of Eduardo’s brain can’t help but repeat ‘ _I didn't think you would appreciate it if I'd staged a fake bank robbery_ ’ over and over again, but thankfully there’s nothing fake about this particular bank robbery. It’s as real as it gets.)   
There are hostages, which is one of the reasons why SHIELD decided it would be a good idea to involve Spiderman. The other reason is that there’s quote ‘something wrong with the tech’ unquote. 

“There’s something wrong with the tech”, Eduardo repeats, because really. Could they be any vaguer? 

“We don’t know what it is. The bank’s security features just went down all at the same time, the cameras, the doors, everything. We’ve got no Intel and our guys say they can’t find a way to reboot the systems. It’s as if somebody has just…wiped it all out.” 

“You’ve got Tony Stark on your team”, Eduardo points out. “Why didn’t you ask for him? In case you didn’t know he’s way better with technology than I or anybody else ever could be. I’m pretty sure he turned his own brain into a computer. In a cave in Afghanistan, you know, using a pair of tweezers. He’s _that_ good.”

“He’s also not here right now,” Maria Hill replies sharply. “You are. We’ve got to work with what we’ve got.”

Way to make a guy feel appreciated, really.   
Thanks a lot. 

In the end he doesn’t care about the malfunctioning technology (he doesn’t exactly _suck_ at this stuff, but that doesn’t mean it’s his area of expertise), but he does manage to rescue the hostages, which is a win in his book. He doesn’t catch the bad guys though (which probably makes it a loose in SHIELD’s books) and he can’t stop thinking about…other stuff. 

All in all it’s not one of his best works. It’s sloppy. Eduardo is the first person to admit that.   
But he definitely doesn’t need SHIELD to spell it out for him, which is why he flees from the crime scene as soon as he can. 

~

This time it takes Mark less than a second to rip the curtain aside after Eduardo’s knock. It’s as if he has been sitting right next to the window, waiting for Spiderman to show up again. Which is not disturbing at all.

“You’re hurt”, is the first thing he says, even before Eduardo’s feet have touched the ground. 

“I… Right. Yes. It’s nothing. Look, this isn’t why I’m here. I came to ask…”

“You’re bleeding.” Mark’s eyes are wide and fixated on the torn costume as if it’s the first time in his life he has ever seen blood. “How did you get _hurt?_ ”

“That’s not…” Eduardo sighs. He looks down at himself and frowns irritated. It’s nothing, really. It’s barely even a flesh wound, but it’s also a distraction that he doesn’t need right now. “Somebody shot at me. Well, they shot at the glass panel I was… but you know what, that’s a long story. And also none of your business”, he remembers belatedly. Why is he even talking to Mark about his job? 

“Why did they shoot at you?”

“Well, I guess they didn’t want me to catch them. Who would’ve thought the average criminal is so opposed to being caught, right?” 

“You’re not supposed to be hurt.” 

“I’m not?” Eduardo raises an eyebrow, entirely caught off guard by how upset Mark sounds. 

The thing about not sleeping is - it sucks when you’re an average person. But when you’re a super hero it does more than suck, it tends to make you sloppy and prone to mistakes which gets you injured (or sometimes killed).   
But this? This is hardly worth mentioning. It still stings and he supposes he missed to pull out some of the glass shards and there’s blood outside of his body where it doesn’t belong (oh joy), but it’s not going to kill him and most importantly it doesn’t hinder his movements. Maybe he has done a crappy job of patching himself up afterwards, but he had been in a rush getting here, okay? 

Mark still looks distracted. “You’re bleeding on the carpet.” 

“It’s an especially ugly carpet”, Eduardo feels inclined to point out.   
It really is. He’s pretty sure a few drops of blood on the horrifying red-brown-yellow floral patterns can only be counted as an improvement. “About these letters…”

“Shouldn’t we do something about that?”

“Exactly! If you could remember the dates you got them, we could cross-reference the dates and the…”

“I meant the bleeding.”

“Mark. Focus!”

Mark’s eyes snap to his face. 

Eduardo sighs wearily. It proves to be more difficult than expected to get Mark to talk or to listen. On the other hand…hasn’t this always been part of the challenge?   
“For somebody so insistent on needing a bodyguard you’re awfully blasé about the whole thing”, he snaps. “Do you actually give a damn that somebody might be trying to kill you? And what the hell…what the _hell is that?_ ” 

He hasn’t really looked around before, too preoccupied with Mark being irritating (well, more than usual), but now he does and what he finds is incredibly disturbing.   
There are four computers running simultaneously, which okay, is pretty standard Mark behavior. What’s creepy is everything else.   
Two of the screens show pictures of Spiderman. The third one displays a map of New York and the fourth one is running endless strings of code and numbers. 

“Have you been stalking me?” Eduardo asks disbelievingly. 

Mark shrugs a little awkwardly. “I tried to predict your usual route with an algorithm that takes into account the all the spots you have been seen in the last six months, the crime rate in different parts of the city and the average height of the skyscrapers. It’s…it’s still missing some variables though. And I…hey, you just said I shouldn’t leave the room. I didn’t.” 

“Are you crazy?”

Mark returns his look determinedly, but he doesn’t protest.   
He obviously is crazy. And a stalker. And…

Eduardo’s gaze wanders and it comes to rest upon a part of the wall where Mark seems to have scribbled something directly on the wallpaper with green ink. It looks as if Mark just had a thought and has scribbled it on the first available surface.   
Eduardo sees numbers, operators and long, complicated equations – some of them even make sense - and all of a sudden the green inks turns to white and he’s back in Harvard, starring at the window in Mark’s dorm room.   
The reflection of his face is staring back at him. 

‘Remember the algorithm on the window at Kirkland?’ 

It feels as if somebody sucked the air out of the room.   
Maybe he swayed or made a sound, but he must have done _something_ , because all of a sudden Mark is there.

“Sit down”, he says again and this time there are hands on Eduardo chest, pushing him toward the four poster bed. 

“This bed is ridiculous”, Eduardo hears himself say. He tries to keep his voice even, but he isn’t sure if he succeeds. Mark’s hands on him are all sorts of distracting and gentle in a way he only ever is when he’s typing down delicate lines of code. 

Eduardo’s still starring at the wall and he’s still only seeing the window, the goddamn window where it all started. 

“I know.” Mark’s chewing at his lower lip. He’s still starring at the torn costume, looking equal parts out of his depth and determined. This is not a good combination. “Wait here.”

“No”, Eduardo says, but he’s already talking to Mark’s back. 

He turns his head again, feeling strangely lightheaded and surreal as if the wall is not simply a wall (with desperately ugly wallpaper), but a space-time vortex, a super massive black hole that goes all the way back to the past.   
Maybe if he’d just strained his ears a little, he would be able to hear the soft pitter-patter of rain against the window and the gentle hum of Mark’s computer. 

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, Mark is back. 

He sits down next to Eduardo and again, it is too close and too much. He reaches out and instinctively Eduardo jerks back.   
Mark pauses, hand in the air.   
Eduardo eyes him warily. 

“When I was in college”, Mark says slowly, “I fell into a beer bottle once.” 

“Did you.” 

“Actually it wasn’t a beer bottle, more like beer pyramid. My…my roommates were throwing a party the night before. Lots of people, lots of booze. The next morning I walked across the living room and stumbled into their beer pyramid.” 

Eduardo swallows. His mouth feels dry all of a sudden because…he knows where this story is going. He remembers the night and the party and how he had fallen asleep on Mark’s bed. 

“Broke three bottles in the fall”, Mark continues. “With my left arm.”

“That must have hurt”, Eduardo says softly.   
He also remembers the blood.

“It did. I’ve still got the scars.” Eduardo watched Mark lick his lips. He knew what was going to come, but he felt himself unable to stop it. “I…I had this friend back then. He spent half an hour pulling all of the glass shards out of my arm. It was a lot.” 

Eduardo closes his eyes.   
Mark’s fingers are careful on his skin. It doesn’t even hurt when he removes the sloppy bandage.   
But it does feel as if Mark is removing his skin and laying him bare.   
He hears the soft little ‘clink’ as Mark drops the first removed shard onto the night desk. Others follow. Rationally he knows it should hurt like a bitch, but he barely feels it. 

Maybe if he’ll never opens his eyes again, Eduardo thinks and he feels almost floating, time is going to freeze. Maybe then the vortex will suck him in and he’s going to stay there forever, in a window made out of wallpaper, between numbers and algorithms and Mark. 

Fingertips touch his neck and Eduardo grabs Mark’s wrist reflexively.   
Mark stills.   
Eduardo opens his eyes. “Don’t.” His voice is rough. 

„I wouldn’t have jumped, you know”, Mark whispers. “When I stood on the roof, I mean.” It’s so soft Eduardo almost misses it, but something in his voice sounds so…urgent.   
Mark’s face is really close and his careful, gentle fingers starts to pull at the mask. Eduardo’s heartbeat speeds up, but this time he doesn’t stop him.  
“I wasn’t planning on jumping. I knew you would come. But the first time you saved me in that alley…I didn’t really care back then whether he would kill me or not.”

Eduardo believes him.   
It scares him that he does.   
And then Mark pulls the mask up, just enough to reveal his lips and kisses him straight on the mouth. 

It’s a determined kiss, fierce and desperate.   
It must be the space-time vortex. There’s no other explanation for it. 

Somewhere between the first shock and the rush of blood to his head, Eduardo remembers how this is one of his biggest regrets. That he has never kissed Mark, not before it was too late, and before he finishes the thought he finds himself kissing Mark back. 

Mark has always been awkward when it came to physical contact, all bones and sharp angles, skinny and uncomfortable and that’s why Eduardo has always assumed Mark wouldn’t be… well good at kissing.   
But this kiss is everything soft and sweet and hopeful he has ever imagined; it tastes like bittersweet regret and desperate enough to leave him breathless. It feels like standing on the edge of a rooftop with Mark, looking down and falling upwards. 

It’s perfect until the moment Mark’s lips part. Eduardo gasps involuntary and Mark looks blissed out and happy, his eyes are closed and he breathes: „Wardo…”

Eduardo freezes.   
For a second everything stands still.   
Nothing else exists in the whole universe except this one moment and him and Mark.

Mark knows.  
Mark _knows_.  
Why…?  
How…?   
When…?

But then Mark makes a sound, something horrified, deep in his throat and jerks his head back, his eyes wide and dark and he looks … 

And for a second Eduardo is confused because why would Mark look so desperate when he just…

One look at Mark’s face tells him the truth. Because Mark doesn’t look like somebody who just recognized a vigilante‘s true identity.  
Mark looks like somebody who just blurted out the name of his ex-girlfriend during sex.   
And Eduardo understands. 

Hysterical laughter bubbles in his throat. 

Mark doesn’t know who he is.   
He never knew. 

Mark only plays pretend.   
And all of a sudden it all makes sense, all of it. The way Mark kept looking at him as if he was trying to see something… _somebody_. The way he kept blurting random things out, things he would’ve told Eduardo when they used to be friends, but never a random stranger. And the way he has never been surprised and never suspicious when Eduardo acted like… well, Eduardo, because in his head, it probably all made sense.   
In Mark’s twisted little head it all made sense. 

“Sorry, I…” Mark shakes his head. He looks horrified. “I didn't mean… It’s not…it’s not…he’s not even talking to me anymore…”  
There’s still blood on his fingers. Eduardo’s blood.  
It’s probably smeared all over his mask and his face by now. 

And Eduardo can’t stop laughing and laughing. It’s a horrible wheezing sound and it hurts somewhere deep in his chest.


End file.
